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Saturday, August 6, 2016

A School-Related Guest Post from Author Charlotte Huang!

The lovely Nori from ReadWriteLove28 is bringing Bookitcon back for a second year! The event is one day only, this Sunday, August 7th! Hopefully some of you are going. I wish I was because A FUN BOOKISH EVENT MEETING BLOGGERS AND AUTHORS I ALWAYS WANT TO GO TO THESE THINGS. If you're going, I hope you have the best time! Talk to everyone. Get all your books signed. And just have all the fun!

And now I'm gonna turn this over to Charlotte, one of the authors who will be at Bookitcon and who you should absolutely meet if you can!

*****

My next YA novel, GOING GEEK, comes out in a little over a month (September 13)! It’s set in a boarding school and is meant to be a fun story about friendships, romance, and figuring out what kind of person you want to be. But at its heart, it’s a book about second chances and seeing past what’s immediately in front of you, both in terms of yourself and other people. In that spirit, here are the top five things I’d do differently if I found myself back in high school!

1. Speak up. I was often very quiet, to the point of being invisible, in the classroom. It wasn’t that I didn’t have opinions or do the work. I think I was just afraid to be wrong. This is a bit of a tangent but bear with me. Both of my sons play basketball and always come away from games impressed by the high scorers. I try to point out to them that the kids who make a lot of baskets, also miss a lot. I encourage them to do the same, because the kids who are taking any shot they can are the ones who are developing as players. It turns out missing is just as important for learning as making the shot. If I were to do it all over again, I’d get more comfortable with just taking the shot. (Yes, I’m back to talking about courage in the classroom.)

2. Stay healthy. With everything that’s going on in high school, it’s really easy to let your health slide. I know I ate poorly, never slept, and didn’t get much exercise. There’s no way that didn’t take a toll on my mood and my grades. Also, much of my senior year was spent battling strep throat and the flu, which made me miss out on a lot of fun moments. I tend to believe that everything is easier and more enjoyable if you’re as healthy as you can be and I see no reason why high school would be an exception.

3. Jump in. It’s hard to be a beginner at anything. Especially if you’re in an environment where other people are already accomplished at the thing you’re just setting out to do. Don’t talk yourself out of pursuing your next big passion. Getting up to speed on almost anything takes time and if you wait another year, hemming and hawing, that’s a year of potential improvement that you won’t get back. And some things won’t get any easier so you might as well just start.

4. Fake it. I didn’t learn this until one of my bosses said it to me in my twenties. I was a nervous wreck about a presentation or meeting that I had to lead and he sat me down to share this bit of wisdom: act and speak with confidence, even if you don’t feel it. He told me about a time he made a point in a meeting that was not particularly insightful, but he delivered it with such self-assurance that people around the room nodded along with him. Now I’m not suggesting you become an insufferable blowhard who doesn’t actually know anything. But in those situations where you feel a little bit unsure, mustering up the appearance of confidence, or belonging, can go a long way.

5. Trust yourself. From time to time, we all encounter people who just don’t get us. There’s no way to avoid these people but the trick is to not let their voices about who we are be louder than our own. If we’re not even totally sure what we’re capable of, how could anyone else possibly be?

*****

Thanks for reading! You can always find me on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat @charlottexhuang

Here’s more about GOING GEEK from Goodreads:It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Skylar Hoffman’s senior year at her preppy East Coast boarding school should have been perfect: amazing boyfriendthe coolest friendsthe most desirable dormBut it’s far from it. To her dismay, Skylar’s not going to rule senior year because she’s stuck in Abbot House, a tiny dorm known for, well, nothing. Living with a group of strangers everyone thinks is lame is bad enough. Worse is that Skylar wasn’t exactly truthful about how she spent summer break in Los Angeles—and her little white lie is causing her once rock-solid romance to crumble fast. And when it turns out that Skylar’s best friend is the one responsible for having her booted from Lincoln? It’s an all-out war.

Stepping out of her comfort zone never felt so scary—or necessary. But everything is different now. Including, maybe, Skylar herself . . .

*****

The Guest List:

Albert Borris

Amanda Foody

Anna Breslaw

April Lindner

AV Geiger

Barbara Dee

Beth Fantaskey

Charlotte Huang

Claire Legrand

Emma Chase

Eric Smith

Jodi Meadows

Josh Berk

Julie Chibbaro

Julie Eshbaugh

Karole Cozzo

Kathryn Holmes

Kendall Kulper

Kit Grindstaff

Lee Kelly

Lisa A. Koosis

Mackenzi Lee

Martina A Boone

Mia Siegert

Nancy Norbeck

Phoebe North

S Usher Evans

Sandy Hall

SJ Goslee

Victoria Scott

A little bit more about Bookitcon:

Bookitcon: Chapter Two is a charity book event. We currently have 30 incredible authors in our lineup. The book event will include meet-n-greets with the authors, along with two panels and the opportunity to get all of your books signed by all of the authors!

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I'm Holly, the blogger behind The Fox's Hideaway. I love to read, write, play video games, and Netflix. I spend way too much time binge-watching TV shows I never finish, procrastinating life, and disappearing into the pages of a book for hours on end. I started this blog as a way to give myself a creative outlet for writing and talk books with people who "get" it. And it's since become one of the biggest passions I have, and it humbles me that you're here and reading this short little paragraph right now. I hope you'll stick around as I rant and rave and stumble through adulthood. :D

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